Up until now I've enjoyed the Riddick films; Pitch Black in 2000 was just amazing. His polished eyes and his "I go this attitude" left me in awe. Then it was followed by the Chronicles of Riddick (C.O.R.) & Dark Fury (animated) both released in 2004. This is when Riddick developed into a whole new level of Antihero, even though, making him Lord Marshal was a little too much. Now with this technical 4th installment of the Riddick franchise, Vin Diesel reprises his role as Riddick, and is accompanied by a crew of actors with a lot of experience like Jordi Mollà (Colombiana),Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica), Dave Bautista (WWE) and Bokeem Woodbine (Southland). David Twohy has successfully directed all the previous franchise films with the only difference in this one is that Vin Diesel is the Producer. And why not? He mortgaged his house for this movie! I definitely think he should get a bigger say in it. I was glad they upgraded the movie to R rating since C.O.R. had been leash to a pg-13. Riddick fans and Producer Vin Diesel wanted much more and now they have it, as far as violence and nudity are concerned.
Riddick is once again left for dead; he now has to survive on this new desolate planet but there's a hidden menace that he's trying to avoid. So he makes a plan to get off this dangerous world by putting out a distress call and without delay bounty hunters are on his tail. Two teams want the double dead bounty on Riddick's head but some questions must be answered… the past does come back to haunt him.
Spoiler Alert! You've been warned!
The original Pitch Black sets the stage for this current film save for the first 5 min, which is about Riddick having a drinking problem, losing his edge, and falling from the crown. He longed to find his home world Furya and Vaako (Karl Urban) is the only one that knows its location. Since the previous lord Marshall had all knowledge of it wiped from record. Vaako sends Riddick with a crew on a trip in which he is to be assassinated but, instead survives and is left for dead on a deserted planet. They show how he retrains and becomes master of his domain, with his one loyal subject, his dog. He becomes the original Riddick he once was, so to speak.
It rarely rains on this deserted planet and after many months He sees his first rainfall and a lot of movement in the ground. So now he has the sudden urge to get off the planet before these venomous sand dwelling creatures get rained on, awakened, and feed. So he puts out a distress call and two bounty hunter teams respond; one is manned by a ruthless leader Santana (Jordi Mollà) and the other is led by Boss Johns (Matt Nable). Boss Johns is the father of one of the original bounty hunters from Pitch Black. He wants answers for his son's death and he's been searching for Riddick a long time. So as usual Riddick gives them a chance to leave as long as they give him one ship. That idea won't stand with both crews, and then, the melee begins; Riddick kills only the really bad ones and leaves the not so bad ones alive. Then it starts raining. So they join forces in order to fight these monsters. There is a betrayal and a fight to go with it between Diaz (Bautista) and Riddick but, it ended so quickly that it was pointless. Not much else, almost the same plot as Pitch Black.
The Good:
The only sweet spot in this movie is the 4 sec. Side boob shot of Katee Sackhoff. Without that the whole movie would have been just crap. So in order not to make this a whole bash fest, I'm going to focus on the lovely 33 yrs. old from Portland, who has made a great career in the sci-fi industry. She's done voice work in quite a few video games like Halo 3, Spider-Man: Edge of time and Resistance 2. She's done voices in a lot of popular cartoons as well like Transformers and Star Wars: Clone Wars to name a few. She is a talented actress but I think she needs to open up a little more in film choices. Thank you Katee Sackhoff for showing your boobs; I respect that you called your family to get their say on it which shows you're a classy lady. Oh, the other great thing about going to see this movie is the Trailer for 47 Ronin; ladies and gentleman, Keanu Reeves is back!
The Bad:
I get the character of Riddick but, what were they trying to do? If this would have been a reboot of pitch black or just an action junkie film, then that would have been fine with me. The problem lies in trying to tell a story and the good parts are left out. I mean seriously, who cuts out a great story like the fall of Riddick from the Necromancers throne and places it in a 5 min montage? One thing I hate that has nothing to do with the actual movie is that Karl Urban wasn't in the film; he was only part of the "montage", but I know they wanted him to be listed as starring in the film. If you have seen Pitch Black, you will realize Twohy makes so many references to that movie that it's kind of sad. I highly recommend you wait for Redbox on this 4th installment.
The Ugly:
The guy gets a dog! Seriously? You're a trained assassin wanted all over the known galaxy and you have a tender moment with a puppy?
I know many who had mixed feelings about the Riddick franchise and personally I really enjoyed them. I've even played the video games Butcher Bay and Dark Athena. I was seriously hoping for a Riddick/Aliens type movie, which would have been kinda cool. Yes, corny but honestly I would have been all for it. I like the idea of Riddick and even though execution and originality were lacking. I'm not ignorant and I understand that the character was expanded too much in the C.O.R. (2004) and Twohy wanted to go back to basics, but maybe a little variety or at least a little more about Riddick's exile would have been helpful. I would've even taken a prequel film of how he got to the status of most wanted in the known universe. Ultimately you're getting more of the same and while I hope Twohy and Diesel somehow bring the character back to his former glory, I'm giving this new film a 2 out of TOV 5 stars.
